The Hard Edges of Things
by neoxphile
Summary: When Mulder returns from his abduction three years later, he's burdened with a horrific secret
1. Dropped

Title: The Hard Edges of Things  
Spoilers: Requiem  
Category: AU post-Requiem

Summary: When Mulder returns from his abduction three years later, he's burdened with a horrific secret.

Author's Note: This story greatly diverges from canon after season seven. The prequel, "Ashes Bitter on Her Tongue" might shed some light on parts of the plot. Or not.

* * *

When the wind shifted overhead he could feel it blister his bare skin. The heat of it, a flame that would consume him, though poor fuel his body must be. If there had been air in his lungs, he would have screamed. There wasn't. The distance he'd been dropped, flung like a cigarette out a car window, had winded him on impact. All he could do was stare up at the craft with eyes that burned with the rest of him.

The craft didn't acknowledge the broken human that it left on the ground below. Instead it lingered a moment while its pilot punched in coordinates, then zoomed off leaving a trail of colored sparks that could have been fireworks but weren't.

Breathing shallowly, Mulder watched it go, and hoped that he would never see it again. Eventually he reached out one hand to touch a blistered leg. He pulled his hand away, bewildered. All his fingers had found was smooth, slightly hairy skin. No burns or blisters. He ran his hands over his thin body and found more of the same. He hadn't burned. Not even a little. The scars were still there, but he'd expected that. The craft had been full of shiny surfaces to show what they'd done to him with their sharp blades. Like scalpels, but not quite, just like all the dream (or nightmare) familiar objects they'd had. Earth-like objects designed by a fevered artist who lingered too long over the Guernica.

He waited on the cold ground. Maybe someone would come along to help him. Maybe he'd die and no one would have to bother. No one came, and the sky didn't lighten. It just stayed dark and mercifully empty but for a few half-hearted stars.

So he got up, trying not to moan out loud though there was no one to hear him. There were houses up and down the road but he knocked on no doors. A clothes line along his path found itself light a sweater, drawstring pants and a fleece throw. The owners didn't notice. No one noticed the first naked, then oddly clothed man who slowly limped down the long winding road.

He knew where he was. It seemed odd, that he might have been left somewhere vaguely familiar, but he half way trusted that his mind wasn't just playing a cruel trick on him. A single-minded determined was the only thing that kept his feet moving. His destination wasn't far, perhaps just six or seven miles, but that was a least five miles more than his body was up for.

By the time he got where he needed to be, the blisters were real, at least on the soles of his feet. He meant to raise his fist and knock on the door, but in the end his courage failed him.

* * *

Early the next morning Skinner nearly tripped over the man sleeping on his porch. He had it in mind to wake the bum and tell him to move on when he realized that the man shivering under the half-sized blanket was his missing agent.

Bending down, he gently shook Mulder's shoulder to wake him. Eventually Mulder cracked his bloodshot eyes open and stared at him. To Skinner's relief there was recognition in that gaze.

"Skinner," he rasped, and the surprised look on Mulder's face clearly telegraphed his thoughts: Mulder was also wondering how long it had been since he last spoke.

"Can you stand?" Skinner's voice was gruffer than he intended, but Mulder nodded.

When he stood trembling before him, Skinner was horrified that even through the sweater he could occasionally see the outline of Mulder's ribs as he moved. "Let's get you inside. It's too cold out here." It was unseasonably cool for August, promising rain later in the day, but he suspected that it was a lack of body fat, not the temperature, making the other man so miserably cold.

Mulder was clearly stiff from his nap on the porch because he had the shuffling gait of a man in leg irons. It took three times as long as Skinner had patience for to get him to the kitchen table and put a mug of coffee into his hands. Mulder gave him a grateful look, and Skinner almost warned him not to offer thanks until after his first sip.

Instead of asking any of the thousands of questions crowding his head, Skinner went to the fridge and took out a carton of eggs and a pound of bacon. He occupied himself with the mundanities of cooking while Mulder slowly drained his mug.

"How long." Mulder's voice was so quiet that Skinner didn't realize he'd spoken at first.

When he glanced over at him, the other man was looking at him expectantly. "Mulder…" The rest of the words died in Skinner's throat. How would he explain?

Mulder looked away. It seemed as though he realized that he had just placed a great burden on Skinner. Still looking out the window he said, "I have to call Scully."

"Don't."

"She needs to know that I'm back."

"She doesn't need to know right now," Skinner objected.

"Yes, she does," Mulder insisted.

"Mulder..." Skinner broke off, frustrated, wondering how he could explain. Just do it, he told himself firmly. It's kinder if you don't pussyfoot around it. "If you call her now, you'll wake her kids."

This made Mulder looked up sharply. "Kids? She said... she said the IVF didn't work."

Skinner sat down heavily. "It didn't. There was a moment, right after you were abducted that she was given false hope. But no. It didn't work."

"Then she found someone else," Mulder said in a dead voice. His eyes got that faraway look again that suggested that he was shutting down.

"Not the way you're thinking," Skinner protested. "About a year after you were abducted she got a phone call. Two toddlers had been orphaned after a car accident. The lawyer for the family's estate had insisted they do a DNA search because they thought an uncle might have donated bone marrow and was in the system. They didn't find a wayward uncle. Instead they found Scully."

Mulder stared at him, face painted with disbelief. It was only when Mulder began to rant that he understood what he'd said wrong. "About a year? Scully found two more of her children about a year after I was abducted? How long have I been gone? Answer me, God dammit!"

"Three years."

Skinner's statement hung in the air for a full minute before Mulder said anything more.

"Tell me about these children. Are they healthy?" Mulder asked, sounding both interested and oddly urgent.

At least that was something positive he could talk about, and aleve any worry Mulder might have that they were like Emily. "They're obscenely healthy. Tommy's five, and Grace is almost three. Someone from the consortium placed them both with the same parents. It is Scully's theory that the consortium was no longer interested in trying to create human-hybrids, but no one knows what had been the intended purpose for them…" As he said this, he wondered if Mulder even cared about those sorts of details right then.

A pause stretched out between them. Then Mulder broke it by quietly asking, "Are they mine?"

Skinner shrugged helplessly. "As far as I know she's never done a paternity test against your DNA."

"She doesn't want them to be mine."

"I don't think it's that," Skinner shook his head quickly. "I think she's afraid. Afraid that they're not. And if they're not wh-"

"Maybe she should be afraid."

"What do you mean?" Skinner demanded to know.

His erstwhile missing agent started at him with dead eyes. After a few seconds Skinner realized that Mulder was not going to explain his statement. It was hard to remind himself that he had to be patient, because he wanted to ask Mulder 10,000 questions, starting with "where have you been?" and ending with "what are you going to do now?" all at once.

The scars on Mulder's body suggested that he'd been thoroughly tortured already, so Skinner reminded himself that an inquisition after that would be unfair. He turned back to the stove, reminded by popping noises coming from the frying pan that he had a task to finish.

* * *

_a/n: feedback or I'm not going to believe you want me to continue..._


	2. Mornings

As they sat at the table and steadily ate their way through breakfast, Skinner kept getting an overwhelming urge to run to the phone and call Scully despite what he'd told him, but he didn't. There was more to it than not wanting to wake up Tommy and Grace...he wasn't sure how she would react.

Dealing with Mulder's disappearance had been hard on Scully, especially the first year. Back then, every time he spoke to her, he tried to avoid looking her in the eye, because when he did, he saw first hope, then disappointment that he wasn't bringing her life-changing news. It made him envy the people in her life that didn't constantly disappoint her.

After the first year, after Tommy and Grace entered her life, things got better, but Skinner was afraid that her peace was a fragile one. Knowing that Mulder was back would have a profound impact on her…and he could only hope that it'd be a positive one.

"I didn't know you could cook," Mulder said, looking up from the ruin of his eggs.

"It's a well-guarded secret," Skinner replied, going for an airy tone, but failing. "If people knew, they'd make me cook on retreats."

"They still do those?" Mulder asked with the tone of someone asking if there was still gravity.

"Every other year, whether we need it or not."

Conversation petered out after that. And Mulder did not say anything as he listened to Skinner call the office and tell them that he would not be in for the day. No one asked why he was going to be out, and he had no inclination to volunteer the information, letting them assume that perhaps he had taken ill overnight.

* * *

When Scully's alarm clock went off she contemplated picking up one of her slippers and heaving it at it. The thought that she didn't have time to go buy another one after work was the only thing that stilled her hand.

Yawning, she got up and shut the alarm clock off before wandering down the hall towards her children's rooms. Tommy was already putting on his shoes when she poked her head into his room to say good morning, so she continued on to her daughter's room.

Tommy was an early riser who got up without complaint, but his sister wasn't any more like that than Scully was herself. As usual Grace was huddled under a mountain of blankets that Scully used to worry would make her too hot but never did. Leaning over the bed, Scully peeled back the covers until they finally revealed a tiny redhead with eyes tightly scrunched shut.

"Hey," Scully said, knowing that she was awake. "Time to get up."

"No!" Grace wailed, eyes still closed.

"Yes," Scully said, wondering if she'd get Grace up or run out of patience and resort to wrestling her into her clothes first. "It's morning."

"Don't wanna it be."

"You and me both, kid," Scully said under her breath. The week after she brought Tommy and Grace home was the last week she'd spent in the field. The transfer to Quantico that she'd requested was fulfilled in a bewilderingly rapid manner… at least it felt that way until she realized how soon the next session a Quantico was beginning: they'd probably been pressured to get her over there quickly to keep from having to dump her in midterm. She'd hated it then, and still continues to hate it.

Looking down at her little girl, she sighed. "Come on, you don't need to want it to be morning, Grace. Morning doesn't care how we feel about it."

"It don't?" Grace's eyes popped open to give Scully a curious look.

"Nope." With that, Scully swept little girl up and set her on the floor. Grace giggled gleefully.

Reaching into Grace's closet, Scully pulled out two sundresses. "Which one?" she asked, holding them in front of the girl.

"That one!" Grace yelled, poking enthusiastically at the plaid, grass green one covered in ladybugs.

"Okay. Night gown off."

Grace was in a better mood than most mornings, evidenced by her compliance rather than having a tantrum. "Where's Tommy?" she asked as soon as Scully pulled the dress over her head.

"I think he's-" A flushing toilet interrupted Scully. Grace grinned at her so she asked, "you next, huh?"

"No! Pull up!" Grace declared, running towards the package Scully vainly kept hoping she wouldn't have to replace. Potty training was going nowhere fast, even though Grace could now change herself like she was at that very moment.

"Oh, Grace…" She just didn't have the energy to argue with her. "Soon, kiddo. Soon."

"Uh uh," Grace said, shaking her head hard enough to make her red ringlets bounce.

"Then you'll make a liar out of grandma." Pointing at the doorway, Scully declared, "mush!" Grace giggled again and raced down the hallway. For someone who did not enjoy getting out of bed, she certainly woke with enough energy.

Tommy was sitting quietly at the table by the time Scully and Grace reach the kitchen. He looked up with a smile when they enter the room, they didn't say anything. Scully hadn't really expected him to. "Hey, Tommy," she said, running a hand over a short red curls. "What kind of cereal do you want?"

Her son thought about this for a moment. "Count Chocula."

Looking at Grace, Scully asked, "and you, miss?"

"Yeah, that." Grace nodded.

"Three bowls of count Chocula coming up," Scully declared, setting the bowls out in front of her.

"You too, mommy?" Tommy asked, apparently surprised.

"Me too. I don't know about you, but I'm tired."

"Nope, not me."

Scully reached for the cereal box and began to pour it into all three bowls before looking at him. "I don't know, you must've gotten somebody else's genes too. Because I know I only have night owl genes, not early bird genes."

Tommy opened his mouth to say something, but Grace interrupted him by getting out of her chair and walking around behind Scully's. Scully wasn't exactly sure what she was up to until Grace poked her in the leg. "These aren't jeans. And there aren't any birdies."

Her brother began to giggle. At least until the nearly three-year-old gave him an indignant look. Then he sobered up. "Not those kind of jeans, silly."

"Tommy, be nice," Scully said gently. "She doesn't have any idea what the other kind are yet." Frankly, it still surprised her that he did. Most five-year-olds had no more idea of what genetics were than Grace did.

He immediately looked contrite. "Oh. Okay. Sorry, Grace."

Grace just shrugged, not having understood any of their conversation.

Scully had thought it was over, at least until she realized that Tommy was giving her a look. "Then whose genes did I get?"

"Actually, I'm not sure." Every time he asked something that made her think about Mulder, she wanted to blurt it out, but didn't. She still hadn't tried to see if there was a way to figure out if they were his children. She knew why. Having the answer be no would have been completely unbearable, even worse than not knowing was.

* * *

Once Mulder had eaten, Skinner wasn't sure what to do with him. Until that point the lessons he learned at his grandmother's knee about hospitality carried him forward, but then…

Glancing at Mulder he said, "Well, I guess we better find you something more appropriate to wear."

Mulder looked up at him, and some of the old light in his eyes flickered for a moment. "Sorry, I didn't realize there was a dress code."

Skinner snorted. "You can't tell me you're comfortable."

After a moment Mulder said, "that's true."

"All right then." Skinner got up, pleased that he had a plan of action. Doing something useful would ensure that he didn't have to think too hard about anything beyond the immediate present. Because that sort of thought, the sort of thoughts about what was going to happen now that Mulder was back, was far too difficult. "I'll be back in a minute," he promised.

He had intended to go directly to his bedroom and rifled through his closet, but he found himself hesitating as he walked by the linen closet. Turning on his foot, he walked back to it and pulled out a set of sheets, and three neatly stacked blankets that his cleaning woman had left for him. Then he walked into the seldom used guestroom and began making up the bed.

Mulder had been gone for three years. They really hadn't discussed what he had done during his absence, but it was fairly clear to Skinner that it hadn't been anything lucrative. He knew that Scully had arranged to put all of his possessions in storage, but that wouldn't really help him in the meantime considering that as far as Skinner knew Mulder no longer had a home to put them in. At the very least, he knew that Mulder's apartment had long been rented by someone else. So, it seemed as though Skinner would be having a house guest.

He found that he didn't really mind the company. Hopefully, Mulder would agree to stay with him, instead of impulsively fleeing into the wild. So far, the fact that Mulder hadn't immediately run off as soon as he'd finished eating implied that he was not eager to simply vanish again. They would have to talk about what he really wanted. But not right then.

Finding something that he thought might fit Mulder turned out to be a greater challenge than anticipated. Eventually he came up with a light sweater that had accidentally been shrunken the wash - one that he had kept solely because his cleaning lady had been so distraught about the incident and had worried that he would fire her, and he didn't want to upset her by tossing it out and making her worry that he had changed his mind about the seriousness of the accident - and a pair of jeans that he had bought in the wrong size and never returned. They still were not great, but at least they were better than the outfit Mulder was currently wearing. Socks fortunately only came in one size, unless you had far bigger feet than either man did.

Skinner returned to the guest room and put the clothing on the newly made bed. Then he stuck his head out the door and called "Hey Mulder, you want to come up here?"

It took so long for Mulder to appear, that Skinner had begun to worry that he had been wrong. Maybe Mulder had snuck out the back door. But then, he heard shuffling footstep, and relaxed a little.

When Mulder finally reached the doorway, Skinner pointed at the clothing on the bed. "You can change in here." He might have suggested a shower before changing, but somehow despite looking thin and worn, Mulder was clean.

He didn't add that this would be Mulder's room, but there was clearly an understanding in the other man's eyes. And Mulder didn't object. This left Skinner feeling a little less like everything was spinning out of his control.

As he left the room, carefully closing the door behind him, Skinner began to wonder what the next step should be. Eventually someone would have to tell Scully. There was just no way to avoid that. She had to know, or she would never forgive him. And he couldn't bear that.


	3. No

Alone in Skinner's guest room, Mulder was left feeling exhausted simply by the thought of changing clothing. It hadn't escaped his attention that Skinner had made up the bed, all but saying that he was welcome to stay.

Staying wasn't something he had put any thought into. He had gone to Skinner's house the night before because it had been close and familiar, and that was simply it. If he had been closer to Scully's apartment, he would've gone looking for her there. Although, in the back of his mind knowing that it'd been an apartment, not a house like Skinner's, had on some level made him worry that she had not stayed put. He'd had no idea how long he had been gone, but sensed it'd been a while. Not as long as three years, but perhaps long enough for Scully to decide to relocate. Perhaps she and her mother would have decided to move to the west coast in order to be closer to the rest of their family. It was something of relief to realize that she was still close. Or so he assumed, considering that Skinner had not told him that he couldn't call her because he did not have her current phone number.

That meant he might have, if he'd only had more energy to make the farther distance, found her exactly where he left her. Now, knowing that she had two children, he was glad he didn't. It wasn't as though he did not want to see her just as badly, it was that he did not know how much she would want to see him. Skinner claimed that she hadn't found someone else, but still, taking on parenthood meant that she had moved on in some ways. He just wasn't sure which ways, and if those ways totally excluded him.

These worries raced in his mind as he reached for the clothing that was stacked on the bed and began the difficult process of putting it on. His muscles ached from sleeping on the porch and all that came before then so that made the mere actions of dressing feel excruciatingly difficult. This is why he came to pause in the middle of doing so, looking at the floor length mirror on the back the closet door, before he managed to get the sweater all the way on as well as the jeans and socks.

Skinner's clothes never would have fit Mulder well, but on his ravaged body they made him resemble a scarecrow in his borrowed jeans and sweater. But looking into the mirror, that wasn't what bothered Mulder. The greater source of his angst was a long scar across his abdomen that he could see because he hadn't managed to pull the sweater all the way down yet. It was healing, but it frightened him because there were things he seemed to remember, and this lent credence to the worst of them…

"I think we'll have to go shopping." Skinner's voice behind him made him jump a foot. Until that second he hadn't realized the bedroom door had opened.

His boss already looked guilty by the time Mulder spun around to see him. Mulder gave him a weak smile. "I won't be picking up ladies looking like this."

Skinner raised his eyebrows. "Is picking up ladies on your to do list?"

Although Mulder knew it had been a joke, he couldn't help that his mood immediately darkened. There was of course only one woman he wanted to have anything to do it, and he wasn't sure how soon he would. Looking over at Skinner he merely said, "not now."

To his relief the other man did not press him. Instead he just nodded.

* * *

The trip to the store had been largely silent, and Skinner had not known if he should be pleased or worried about this, especially considering that he hadn't given enough thought to how stressful going out in public might on him be until they were already in the car. Occasionally he glanced at the quiet man beside him, wondering if he should merely be grateful that Mulder hadn't run away screaming when he suggested that they leave the house.

He didn't have any medical background himself, but he had a sneaking suspicion that it was probably mentally healthy for Mulder to be willing to go out in public rather than hole up in the guest room. For no particular reason he had half assumed that Mulder would be agoraphobic. He knew that he wouldn't want to be out and about himself, if it had been him who had had… whatever had happened to Mulder happen him.

Inside the store, Skinner had anticipated Mulder arguing with him about Skinner footing the bill for the things they bought, but to his relief he hadn't. It was only when he thought about it more, and realized that it couldn't come as a surprise to Mulder to realize that he was destitute, at least for the moment, that he understood why Mulder had accepted his charity without complaint. It must be a strange position to be in, Skinner mused, vowing to be as sensitive as possible to the other man's perspective.

The shopping took less time than Skinner anticipated, perhaps because Mulder had simply accepted all of his suggestions and had gone into the changing room without a fight. By the time they had been there an hour, the shopping cart was half full of clothing that should see Mulder through the next several days. Long enough for them to figure out how they would gain access to the things that Mulder already owned, and perhaps more importantly his bank account. Although, Skinner was somewhat doubtful that Mulder's existing wardrobe would currently fit him much better than the close he had lent him. This had him making a mental note to stop the grocery store on the way home.

Things went well, other than shoppers occasionally giving Mulder curious looks probably born about because he was so thin and wearing sweater in late summer, at least until Skinner decided to take a shortcut through the kitchen wares in order to avoid the crowd around the women's clothing section store.

Mulder didn't have a loud outburst, but something about the shiny cutlery on display had him terrified. Skinner hadn't realized it at first until he figured out that a low keening noise nearly that sounded like humming was coming from Mulder's throat. It made Skinner wonder what had happened to him, because clearly he was being reminded of it right then. Rather than make a scene, he prodded him gently in the opposite direction to bypass the rows of knives. Fortunately, this was all that was needed to get Mulder going again.

* * *

Shopping for groceries went equally well, and Skinner was pleased that they managed to get back to his house by ten in the morning. He kept glancing at the clock as he put the groceries into the cabinets and the refrigerator, trying to remember what his class schedule had been like at Quantico. In the end he decided that he was being silly. Scully would not really mind if they pulled her out of class to get the news she had been waiting for the past three years.

Mulder was sitting at the kitchen table, picking at the sandwich that Skinner insisted that he have rather than help him unpack the groceries. Looking over at him, Skinner casually suggested "I could give you the number for Quantico."

The thin man looked up. "No thank you."

For half a second Skinner wondered if he had not been direct enough, and that Mulder had not understood. He found himself beginning to explain "I don't remember if I told you or not, but Scully's teaching there now-"

Mulder's expression was flat. "I assumed as much when you said I could have the number. It's not as though I'm eager to chat up old teachers."

This left him confused. "Okay. I understand if you would rather wait until she's at home to tell her that you're back." As he said that, wondered if he should explain then that Scully had taken a larger apartment in the same building she'd lived in before, but decided that there was no good reason to overload him with information right that second. Her cell phone number was the same, which was the important thing when Mulder needed to talk to her later.

"I'm not going to."

Skinner nearly slapped himself on the forehead. Of course he was concerned about how she would take it. He should have realized that Mulder would worry about how much of a shock it would be to hear from him out of the blue. "Oh. I should've… I can call her for you. Then you can talk to her once she's come around to the idea of you being back."

"I'm not going to tell her, and you're not going to tell her I'm back, either," Mulder explained tonelessly. "She doesn't need to know that I'm back right now."

"Of course she does!" Skinner protested. "When I said that you shouldn't tell her, I just meant at six o'clock in the morning."

Mulder shook his head. "What good would it do her? I'm no good to anyone right now. When I'm healthier, then I'll let her know. She doesn't need to worry about me as well as her kids."

Skinner cocked his head, thinking. Mulder was clearly jealous of the children, but he didn't think that Mulder himself even realized it.

The impulse to tell Mulder that he was being foolish rose up in him, but he was able to squash it. As much as he would like to tell him what to do, he realized that Mulder was his own person. If he had strong feelings about how and when he should reintroduce himself to those in his life, it wasn't fair to pressure him into doing something else.

Feeling deflated, he just looked at Mulder for a moment. "Fine."

For the first time since he opened his eyes on the porch, Mulder looked surprised. "Fine? You're not going to tell me that I need to leave if I don't do you tell me to do?"

Skinner shook his head. "It's your life. I guess it's your right to make a mess of it if you choose to."

"Is that what I'm doing?" He thought he heard Mulder say, but when he glanced back at him, Mulder had already put the sandwich back to his mouth.

* * *

Every time that Skinner looked at him for the rest of the day, Mulder was sure that he was going to launch into a lecture. Tell him that he was being stupid for not letting Scully know immediately that he was back. But each time, Skinner seemed to find the strength to hold his tongue.

Mulder detachedly wondered if he too would have that strength of character in his shoes. Somehow, he believed that it was more difficult for Skinner than it would've been for himself. No one had ever accused Mulder of being too caring, and being distant was not something that he put upon to fool others. No, he was not the person who cared easily about other people, although he did do his best to do right by all of the people there cases touch, if not warmly.

Despite the restraint that Skinner showed, it still came as a relief when he declared that he was going to bed. Since Mulder was not a child, Skinner didn't tell him that that meant he must go to bed as well, but there didn't seem to be much to do else.

Up in the guest room, he at first had played with the small television set, trying to find something that might allow him to disengage his brain for a while, but none of the television shows appealed to him. In fact, many of them were completely unfamiliar, which just served as a reminder that he had lost three years. That only upset him more, so he turned off the TV, before opening one of the bags of clothing they had bought, and yanking out a pair of pajamas. It wasn't in his nature to wear pajamas normally, but it seemed to make Skinner feel better, so he forgo sleeping in his shorts like he would at home. Anyway, the pajamas would certainly keep him warmer, so they had that going for them.

When he turned off the light, and climbed into bed, he found himself straining to hear noises in the hallway. Without quite realizing it, he had slipped back into expecting that they would come for him. He knew that was ridiculous, because he was in Skinner's home now, not on the ship anymore, but still…

Lying on his back, looking at the dark ceiling, he wondered if Skinner realized that he was broken. Scully would, which is one of the reasons why he was not eager to go and see her. Skinner did not have to tell him that she had suffered in his absence, and he knew instinctively that she would suffer even more if she saw him the way he was at the moment.

He just didn't know if he could become the man she remembered again.


	4. Nightmares

An achingly full bladder got Skinner out of bed late that night. Swearing under his breath, he promised himself again that he'd do a better job keeping an eye on the clock when he got a glass of soda or or a beer after dinner. At least it was just drinking too close to bedtime causing him to wake up, not the prostate problems that plagued his grandfather.

A couple of minutes later he heard something over the sounds of the sink. Shutting the tap off, he strained to hear what it was. By the time he dried his hands, he was sure that it was coming from the guestroom.

He opened the door a crack, confirming what he already suspected: Mulder was yelling in his sleep. Skinner shut the door again without hesitation, and headed back to bed. Mulder wouldn't have thanked him if he'd gone in and woke him from his nightmare, that much he was sure of.

He sighed as he climbed back into his bed, thinking of the experience that made him so certain of this. Jimmy Holmes had been the youngest man in Skinner's company at the beginning of his tour. Jimmy hadn't actually been a man yet, having gotten his parents to let him sign up at 17. Skinner hadn't been very old himself back then, but at least he had his high school diploma and could vote. He'd kind of looked out for the younger boy, but not as much as some of the older guys had (at the time they'd seemed grizzled and world-weary, which seemed odd looking back considering none of them had left their twenties yet at the time. Some never would).

After a particularly brutal and confusing battle, Jimmy began to suffer from nightmares, clearly unable to get past the events that had left all of them at least somewhat traumatized themselves. But unlike the rest of them Jimmy got worse as time went on, not better. After a couple of weeks a few of the older guys got tired of waiting for Jimmy to get over it and took it upon themselves to make sure someone woke Jimmy up immediately when he began yelling, partly out of a fear that his squalling would lead the enemy right to them, but mostly because he was depriving them all of sleep which was another sort of danger. Everyone slept better after this, but Jimmy began to look haunted when he was awake too, sinking into himself when not prodded into action.

It didn't really surprise anyone when Jimmy stepped on a landmine about a month later. His folks had been told that it was a tragic accident, and the official excuse was that he'd been sleep deprived and had misstepped, but Skinner knew that wasn't true. He'd been close enough at that last minute to see the look on Jimmy's face. The kid had known it was there. He just stepped on it anyway.

When he thought about it later, Skinner wondered if it had been guilt that prompted Jimmy's final action. If he hadn't been blamed for disrupting everyone's sleep, would he have handled what was now called post-traumatic stress disorder better?

Back when he and Sharon had still been talking about kids, he'd pictured them bickering about what to do when the kids had nightmares. Having a baby never panned out so that fight never happened; it seemed about the only one they didn't have.

So Skinner had no intention of going into the guestroom and making Mulder feel badly for screaming...but he did get up and knock a stack of heavy books to the floor with a satisfying crash.

* * *

A loud crash was still ringing in Mulder's ears when he sat up in bed with a gasp. His nightmare clung to him even though he was now awake. The images from the dream tumbled through his mind, refusing to be forgotten.

The building had been abandoned, and in the dream he hadn't been sure how he'd gotten there. All he knew was that he was there to find something. Even what it might be that he needed to find had eluded him; he just felt strongly that he needed to find it there. Dark hallways led nowhere and he'd found himself pushing past what seemed like dozens of pairs of swing doors that might have made sense in a hospital, but not a warehouse like it seemed to be, at least at first. Eventually the place began to look more like the psych hospital he'd been in while that artifact scrambled his brain. Most of the hallways remained dark, but some distant condors were lit. But the lights always blinked out by the time he reached them.

He'd stumbled down the halls at random at first, but had stopped short, standing still and quiet when he thought he heard his name. After a moment he was rewarded by hearing it again. Familiar. Welcomed. His heart raced, and he yelled back "Scully?"

"I'm here, Mulder, I'm here!" her distant voice returned.

Joy turned to frustration when running, no matter which way he turned, just seemed to carry him away from her voice. A stich in his side eventually forced him to stumble to a stop. When he did, he heard her call him again, and a new sound caught his attention too: a heartbroken cry that seemed to be closer.

He stood there, confused, and torn. He didn't know who was crying, but he sensed strongly that he was supposed to care. Should he continue to look for Scully, or head towards the crying? Maybe he should find the source of the crying first because it seemed closer. Maybe the crying came from someone who could help him locate Scully, but a whisper at the back of his mind expressed doubt about that.

Before he broke his indecision, a bespeckled boy appeared in front of him, along with a cadre of slender, gray-skinned figures. The boy wordlessly pointed at him, and the grays surged forward, seizing him by both arms. Screaming and flailing, he was helplessly dragged away. Scully's voice and the crying rang in the bright hallway behind them.

His stomach clenched, threatening to bring up the steak and potatoes Skinner had cooked them both a few hours earlier, but a series of deep breaths got it back under control. In some ways he felt worse at that moment than he had when he'd been gifted a flashback upon noting a row of steak knives at the store - that had been bad enough that he'd been pretty sure Skinner had nearly decided to cut his meat for him later rather than give him a knife, at least judging by the looks he'd given Mulder, the steak, and the blade.

At least he was sure that this dream only was a dream. Some of the other things rattling around his mind... Scully hadn't been anywhere near him in the past three years. The only reason he was sure of that was because she'd been right in DC, with her kids. If Skinner was to be believed. And he couldn't think of a reason not to believe him. At least then, though he supposed that could change, considering how many people had taught him that 'trust no one' was a sound life plan. Pretty much everyone but Scully had betrayed him at one time or another. But she never had.

Scully.

He understood why Skinner had been aghast when he said he wasn't going to tell her that he had come back. Truly he did. But she'd moved on. She didn't need another person to look after. Skinner only thought she'd be happier if she knew. It would hurt her to see him like he was.

Once he was better, he'd go and see her. Just not yet, not while he could be nothing but a burden to her.

But would Skinner go behind his back and tell her, that was the question. Mulder dropped back against his mattress. He supposed he'd find out if his trust in the man was unfounded soon than later.

* * *

Mulder was already awake by the time Skinner got up. He sat in an armchair, the throw he'd stolen wrapped around his bony shoulders. If it didn't seem so ridiculous to do so, the AD might have offered to turn on the heat. He just couldn't bring himself to suggest it, not in August. "Sleep well?" he asked, trying not to let the question sound too pointed.

''About as well as I expected," Mulder told him with a yawn. "The guestroom bed beats the hell out of sleeping on your porch."

"I aim to please." Glancing at Mulder, and noting that he seemed calm, had him deciding to risk a question. "What about before you slept on my porch?"

To his surprise, Mulder looked faintly amused. "Are you trying to ask me how long I've been back, Walter?"

He nearly snapped at him for being too familiar, but he didn't. Mulder might be back, but it wasn't as though he was still his boss. Or was he? Trying to work that out began to make his head ache. Flashing him a grim smile instead, he said, "I think I am."

It had begun to bother him that he really had no idea how long it had been since Mulder was released. Or had he escaped? It was his instinct to assume Mulder had only just returned, however he'd managed that, but he couldn't shake the thought that he might have returned a while ago, and had just been lost and hungry until he finally had found someone he knew...

Mulder frowned, looking down at his cape nee throw blanket. "It took me a couple of hours to get here, but this is the first place I headed once I was off the ship."

The ship. How many times had he and Scully fought over his insistence that he'd seen a ship separate Mulder from the ground? Too many. But she'd had less energy for arguing once Grace was keeping her up at night...

He wasn't about to admit it to his prodigal agent, but maybe he did have a right to be jealous of Tommy and Grace. Finding them signaled the end of her frantic efforts to find him. At first Skinner had tried to be sympathetic to what a big adjustment it had to be to become an instant parent, but eventually he'd called her on it. She'd given him an unimaginably sad smile and asked him if he was familiar with the old saying about God not closing a door without opening a window. This had left him confused at first until he realized that she was implying that she'd been given the children for consolation. To make up for losing the love of her life. It was only then that he'd become sure that she no longer expected Mulder to come back. Hoped, may be, but no longer expected it.

And now here he was, staring at him when a minute had passed without him saying anything. Blinking in slight confusion, Skinner tried to think of something profound, or at least relevant to say. What came out instead was, "Did you escape, or did they let you go?" That was so ham-fisted he cursed himself and fully expected Mulder to shut down.

He didn't. The cynical look he gave seemed to say 'well, if you really want to know, ask' and Skinner immediately began to wonder if he really did want to.

When he nodded slightly, Mulder began. "It was different at the end. For a while, for what seemed like forever, they'd tried to get something out of me." Mulder paused, looking haunted for a moment, but doggedly went on. "But after... afterwards they gave up on me. They stopped torturing me, but..." His eyes drifted down to his folded hands. "They stopped feeding me too."

Skinner winced. "Mulder..." He was thin because they'd starved him, not because he'd been lost in the world.

Mulder sighed. "I think it was worse, being left alone but slowly starving, than it was to be of interest to them but fed. I never would have guessed that. Up until then I thought all I wanted in the world was to be left alone. How could I imagine I'd one day try to eat pieces of the ship to quiet the rumbling in my gut?"

"Damn," Skinner swore quietly. Even during the war he hadn't met anyone that hungry. Not quite.

This earned him an unexpected, and joyless, smile. "I damned just about everyone by that point." Skinner didn't really expect him to say 'except for you' and he didn't. "That last night I was stunned when they came for me. It had been so long since I'd seen them, it had to be weeks, that I'd long since resigned myself to being left alone for the pitiful remainder of my life. So when I saw them, I assumed they were going to kill me. And when they began to drag me down a corridor, I became sure of it. All I could think was that they were worried about the smell."

Skinner frowned, puzzled by this. ''The smell?"

He nodded. "If they'd just let me die on my own it might have taken them a while to realize that I was finally dead, and by then I would have stunk op the place. Rotting," he added, as if unsure Skinner caught his drift. "So killing me would mean they could dispose of my corpse before then."

There really wasn't anything to say to that, so he held his tongue. Eventually Mulder seemed to grasp that he'd been rendered speechless and went on. "I waited for blows or a stabbing but they just hurried me along until we reached a hatch... they opened it and pushed me out."

"Jesus."

"I thought I was going to die, of course. My brain helpfully reminded me that I'd once read that there's a height from which you can push a man, a mouse, and a horse, and the mouse will walk away, the man will break every bone in his body, and the horse will explode. I didn't know if I should've expected to be the man or the horse, but they'd gotten low enough to the ground that I was lucky enough to be the bruised mouse."

"Then they weren't trying to kill you?"

'I don't think so. They'd done enough Mengelian experimentation to know how to kill a person. I'm sure of that."

"I wonder why they let you go," Skinner blurted out without thinking.

Mulder just shrugged. "Why do bullies eventually tire of burning ants with a magnifying glass."

This time he thought before speaking. "The novelty wears off and they find someone or something new to torture?"

"Probably," Mulder said, yawning. "I think I just wasn't any fun anymore. So they probably found new toys to break."

"Was there anyone else?"

"Hmm?"

"On the ship," he clarified. "Other humans."

"No," Mulder said quickly, not meeting his eyes.

He was lying, obviously, but Skinner didn't think it was because he was protecting another victim. Maybe they had people working for them, even there. The smoking bastard really would have been in his element there, if they left him to torture his fellow man. He'd really missed his calling as a concentration camp guard.

Glancing at Mulder, he felt an unexpected pang of sorrow for him. Much of his own memories of war bordered on the hellish, but he hadn't gone to hell and back alone. It was hard to imagine being tortured for three years, all alone, and coming through it sane. But something about the way Mulder reacted to things left a little voice whispering in the back of Skinner's mind that it might be a little premature to declare Mulder whole and hale quite yet... and it might not just be his body that was frail. And that was another thing... "If we can get an appointment, are you up to a doctor's visit today?"

Mulder gave him a wry look. "What kind of doctor?" he asked, suggesting that he wasn't the only one with concerns about what long term effects might have been spawned from three years of captivity.

"The kind that gives physicals."

He expected Mulder to balk and say he didn't want to, not to look at him and ask, "How would we explain? A good doctor would figure out I'm not a drinker or drug user who'd forgotten to eat. And I'm not the right demographic for an eating disorder."

They'd have to see his doctor, Skinner decided, because Dr. Charles knew he was an AD at the FBI. "I'll see if my MD can see you," Skinner told him. "He knows enough about my job to believe me if I asked him to see a political prisoner."

"That makes me sound important," Mulder replied with the faintest of smiles. "Okay."

"Okay?" he repeated, making sure he hadn't misunderstood. When Mulder nodded, he reached for his phone.

* * *

_a/n: follow are nice, but your feedback is even better..._


	5. Yell

Doctor Frank Charles turned out to be a nice man in his mid-thirties, and Mulder found himself liking him despite how obviously pleased he was to be of assistance to the FBI. As affable as the younger man was, Mulder still wished that Skinner wasn't sitting out in the waiting room. Wanting someone there felt childish considering he'd gone to all doctor's appointments alone since he started middle school, but he still couldn't shake the longing for someone else being there, if only to act as a buffer.

The air conditioner was on, and Mulder's skin goose bumped unpleasantly while his shirt was off. If the doctor wasn't trying to assess his heart, he probably would have begged to get dressed. Most patients probably found the A/C to be nice, but most of them probably had body fat percentages that couldn't be counted on one hand.

Charles multitasked, firing off questions while he examined him. "How long were you held captive?" he asked, listening to his heart. "Sorry, didn't mean to stress you out."

It took a moment for him to realize that the doctor had heard something in his heartbeat react to the question. "Three years." Mulder marveled a little that the answer was both the truth and so bare it barely scratched the surface of what had happened to him. _He thinks you've been in a gulag_, he reminded himself, _not on a space ship_. The thought of how the good doctor might react if he even hinted at the full truth nearly made him laugh, but it wouldn't have been a sound of mirth, so he held it in.

"That's a long time," Charles noted, putting the stethoscope away so he could look in Mulder's mouth. ''I take it that you were more neglected towards the end of that time than the beginning." When this got him a questioning look, he added, "Given you didn't actually starve to death."

As soon as his mouth was free of fingers and instruments, Mulder agreed. "I was feed fairly regularly until the last few weeks."

"Hmm. How many weeks?"

Mulder shrugged helplessly. It might have been three weeks, maybe more than four.

"No calendar?" Charles asked with a sigh. "Considering the likely conditions, I suppose not." Mulder looked at him, suddenly curious about what Skinner had invented about the place he'd been held by a corrupt South American government. Charles seemed to have more defined preconceptions than hellhole covered. "Don't worry about it, I'm guessing about a month, and that's good enough."

"Okay." Mulder answered without looking at the man, and only realized this was a mistake a moment later.

"Now we need to take a little blood..." Charles broke off in dismay when Mulder jumped off the exam table, away from the needle the doctor held in his left hand. "Oh."

_Stop being an idiot_, Mulder scolded himself. Sitting back down, he gave the doctor a weak smile. I'm okay."

"You're sure?" Charles picked the syringe back up and waited for him to nod before cautiously approaching his arm. He relaxed a little when Mulder calmly endured having the first vial drawn. "I'm glad we could proceed. These blood tests are important."

"Sorry." Mulder gave him a sheepish look.

"It's ok, you didn't even make me drop anything," the doctor told him as he finished. But then he gave him a pointed look. "Has this happened before? Are you having nightmares?"

"Yes," Mulder admitted. "To both."

"I'm not a psychiatrist," Charles began, and Mulder had to fight the urge to blurt out his degree. He still didn't know what Skinner had told him to get the appointment, but he was pretty sure that being an oxford educated profiler probably didn't neatly mesh with the fiction. "... but I'm concerned about the trauma you've experienced. I'm going to give you some literature and a number to call if you're not feeling... better soon. All right?"

"Yeah." Truth to be told, the doctor was probably right to be concerned. He was concerned himself.

* * *

The Next Day

Skinner was having a rough morning, and not just because it was hard to get back into the swing of things after two days out of the office. It was difficult to resist the urge to call Mulder every half an hour and make sure that he was okay. Mulder was a grown man, so there was little reason to believe he wouldn't be perfectly fine. He wasn't a six-year-old accidentally left home alone without a sitter. But he was a little concerned by the pamphlets from Dr. Charles that Mulder had accidentally left in the car...

He was also struggling with what he was supposed to do, in an official capacity, about Mulder's return. It was an unfamiliar and uncomfortable position to be put in, to worry about the privacy of someone a case was centered upon. In the normal course of things concern about the feelings of the Victims was at best an afterthought, but this was different. It was Mulder.

Sighing, he told himself that he'd give Mulder until the end of the week, and then they'd have to sit down and formulate a plan. He was sure that it would be met with resistance, but there wasn't much he could do about that. Given that Mulder was a federal agent there were still limited resources being put towards locating him, even three years out. It wasn't out of the goodness of Kersh's heart but to keep up appearances, which made it even more likely that he was going to be called upon to explain the unnecessary continuation of the use of funds. Maybe he could appeal to Mulder on that front.

Eventually, after he formed at least a skeletal action plan, he began to feel a little calmer about the situation. It wouldn't be comfortable reintroducing Mulder, but as long as Mulder didn't run screaming into the night as soon as the topic of closing his case came up, it was not insurmountable.

His feeling of competence, if not outright calm, instantly evaporated when his computer alerted him that he had e-mail: it was from Scully. His heart went into his throat until he realized that she hadn't somehow found out that Mulder was back and he was keeping it from her. Instead of feeling relief when he figured out that she was just giving him a heads up that one of her students was probably going to contact him, he felt a confusing wash of guilt.

Keeping Mulder's return from her didn't sit well with him, but he thought that there was a very real chance that betraying Mulder's trust by telling her would result in Mulder taking off... and he wouldn't keep stopping himself from calling to check on him if he thought he was okay enough to be on his own.

He gritted his teeth and responded to her e-mail with perfunctory pleasantries and found himself rereading his message four times, scouring it for unintended hints about Mulder, before finally hitting the send button.

* * *

A bell on campus chimed loudly at noon, and as one Scully's students gathered their things and filed out of the classroom. She lagged several seconds behind them, hoping that her slight delay would be rewarded.

At first it seemed possible, but then a voice down the hall said, "Dana?"

It took a lot of effort not to cringe or to run in the opposite direction. Instead she made herself turn around. "Finn," she said a little stiffly. The man who stood in the doorway of the classroom next to hers taught understanding terrorism. And he had been irritating her almost continuously for the better part of a year.

Finn Hardy smiled happily at her, making her wonder, not for the first time, if he had a psychological disorder that made him unaware of when he made others uncomfortable, or, worse, if he simply enjoyed his effect on others. "Beautiful day, isn't it?"

Scully looked past him, at the hall window. "Uh..." The day was gray and she could see drops of rain beginning to splatter the wide cement sill.

"Maybe it's just you, then," he said obnoxiously when she didn't get any other words out.

She half suspected that the powers that be would eventually renamed the yearly sexual harassment course that all faculty was required to take in Finn's honor. Rumor had it that she was just the latest in a long string of female faculty members that he had set his sights on, but knowing that she had company did nothing to make her feel better.

Her response to his comment was to glare at him, which he predictably ignored.

"So, when are you going to have dinner with me? You can't use your kids as an excuse, I know a great sitter..."

She tuned out the rest of what he said, letting the words roll over her like waves as she wondered what he thought made him any sort of judge of a good babysitter. Like her, he'd never married, but he'd also never gotten anyone to reproduce with him and no one much seemed to want his DNA like they had hers... Eventually he finished speaking to give her an expectant look.

"I don't need a sitter, Finn. We're not going to dinner."

Another man might have been taken aback by her abruptness, but it wasn't the first time they'd had the conversation. He was so doggedly persistent for no good reason that every time she saw "F. Hardy" on inter-office mail, she imagined the F. was for fool rather than Finn.

"I'll change your mind yet," he declared with unwarranted confidence.

Scully stared at him, wondering how he would react if she said something to the effect that maybe they should discuss the matter with HR. Not that she'd actually turn to them given that she was sure she could eventually get him to back off. It was tempting to evoke that boogeyman, though. "Don't hold your breath."

He'd typically laugh off her admonishment then, but this time he didn't. "Who are you waiting for, anyway?" he demanded to know. "If I'm not good enough for you, who is?"

"That's none of your business," she said icily.

Recognition bloom in his expression. "Oh. So you're holding out for someone who doesn't think you're good enough too."

Retorts she'd like to fire back crowded her mouth, but she didn't let them out. Instead she turned and walked away without a backwards glance.

There was no way she was going to share something so private and painful with the likes of Finn Hardy. Not when there was no chance that he would understand. If her mother didn't understand, he surely wouldn't.

"How many guys are you going to find who are okay with kids?" Finn called down the hall, already seeming to have forgotten that he'd correctly asserted that she was holding out for someone else. Or maybe he was just sure she'd never get the one she really wanted.

Scully continued to ignore him, wishing that the day wasn't just half over.

* * *

Earlier in the morning Mulder had more than half expected that Skinner was going to balk at leaving him alone and actually going off to work, but the older man had left without even telling him to do or not anything while he was gone. He'd been wryly amused at the time, because he'd been fully prepared to hear a list of house rules like a teenage nephew staying with Skinner probably would've.

Left with no chores, and not much energy, Mulder had returned to bed around one that afternoon. It felt strange because his chronic insomnia didn't urge him into naps very often, but the doctor had insisted that he rest as much as he could, as well as stuff his face, so after an uncomfortably large lunch he followed his instincts back to the guestroom. Sleep had taken him easier than it used to.

Something woke him abruptly, but he didn't know what it was at first, nor did he care because he was comfortable under a thick blanket. But when he heard a sound his heart began to jack-hammer in his chest.

An unmistakable sibilant chattering was coming from some place in the distance, but not distant enough. He thought it might be down the hall, and if it was, it wouldn't be long…

Somehow They had figured out exactly where he'd gone once they'd knocked him out of the ship. Cursing himself for not realizing that they might have ways to track him, or at least to accurately guess where he'd most likely gone for help, he jumped out of bed and began to scan the room for something that'd work as a weapon.

His hands found a souvenir backscratcher that someone had probably given Skinner a joke and seized on it even though he knew it was could only offer a pitiful defense.

Maybe he could scratch one or two of them to death before they took him down. He didn't even know if they'd come to kill him, or if they were making him go back. It was hard to decide which was worse, really.

There were enough of them in the hallway to overpower him, backscratcher or no. He could tell that much from listening to them chitter to each other.

He shouldn't have been so stubborn and gone to see Scully before it was too late. If they took him now, she would never forgive him for having returned without saying anything to her.

Maybe he should hide.

The last thought seemed like a good one, so he found himself shoving aside the clothes in closet and squeezing his way in. It bothered him that the door had slats rather than being solid wood, but there wasn't really anything he could do about it. So he shut the door quietly, and settled on the floor to…he didn't actually know what. Wait for them to find him? Attack them when he knew they'd entered the bedroom? To pray that God would save his wretched soul because he couldn't endure any more?

Clutching the backscratcher, he listened hard to what was going on outside the closet. They eventually came into the room, and he thought that they were looking for him, at least from the questioning noises they made to each other.

And then, he saw a long finger poking between the slats. Without quite being aware of it, a warm stain began to spread on the front of his pajama bottoms. Once he realized what he'd done, he sprung to his feet, and threw the door open with a savage yell, hoping to at least surprise the bastards.

As he jumped out he shouted "I'm not going with you!"

To an empty room.

The backscratcher fell from his fingers then, and he covered his face with both hands.


	6. Enough

It was clear to Skinner that something had happen while he was gone that day from Mulder's near silence the whole night, but he decided not to interrogate him. Nothing was damaged, and in fact Mulder had done a load of laundry and the dishes, so it wasn't as though he could complain about his house guest's behavior. So he just let it go, deciding to trust him to speak up if there was something really wrong.

For a moment, just before the two men were going to retire for the night, for it felt like Mulder might confide in him. He knew he was a poor substitute for a confidant compared to Scully, but he still hoped that Mulder trusted him enough to say whatever he needed to get off his chest. What little that had already been said about his ordeal aboard the ship didn't leave Skinner eager to learn more, but if it needed telling he'd listen.

But when Mulder finally did speak up it was just to ask, "Can I borrow your computer tomorrow?"

"Oh, sure," he replied a bit more disappointed than surprised. Maybe Mulder would play computer solitaire. He found it a soothingly mindless game himself.

"Thanks. I need to look some stuff up and I think I'll have more luck online than at the library."

"No problem. Feel free to hop online any time you want to," he replied, thinking that doing some research might be good for him, but betting that it was more likely that he'd look up recent bigfoot sightings instead of the Mulder family tree. "I've got broadband now, so it's not like the days of dialup with long distance charges."

Mulder just said "Thanks" again instead of offering any clues about his research topic. For no particular reason this left Skinner wondering if Scully was what he planned to look up. He almost hoped it was. So much so he found himself admitting "I got an e-mail from Scully today."

Mulder froze a moment obviously shocked, before recovering himself. "What about?" he asked with a barely detectable tremor to his voice.

Skinner shrugged. "She wanted to let me know that one of her students might approach me about the X-Files."

He predicted that Mulder would immediately ask if she'd said anything about him too, but he proved to be a poor mind reader. "The X-Files? I assumed it was closed after Scully left for Quantico."

If Mulder wasn't already on edge all of the time, Skinner might have asked him where the hell he thought he'd been all day. Instead he just shook his head and said, "No, your legacy lives on. I haven't been able to keep anyone in the basement office very long before they've fled for better offers, but the cases are still getting investigated. Not as well as when you and Scully were on them, but-"

"Good," Mulder said quietly. "I'm glad to hear someone is still keeping the truth from being buried or whitewashed."

It was on the tip of Skinner's tongue to suggest that maybe he and Scully would both return to fight the good fight, but there were too many reasons why suggesting that right then would have been cruel. For one Mulder was too frail to work at even an undemanding desk job at the moment, let alone go out into the field to investigate. And even if he was up for it, getting Kersh to reinstate him would be no small feat. Then there was Scully... Even with Mulder back, he wasn't sure if she'd ever return to casework, not now that she had two small children that could be orphaned if she didn't make it home from an investigation.

Mulder was looking at him in a way that reminded him uncomfortably of the brief time when an artifact allowed him to read minds. "I'm hoping Brennan and Howe stick around longer than most. They're young and a little green but they're doing a good job."

''Here's hoping," Mulder told him.

It was only as he was brushing his teeth that Skinner began to consider how strange it was that it had taken Mulder so long to finally ask about the X-Files. A few reasons flitted through his mind as he flossed, none of them good.

* * *

The house was quiet the next morning, and to Mulder's relief his traitorous mind was too. His surety that They had been there to get him the day before scared the hell out of him, and convinced him of what he had to do for the sake of his own sanity, if nothing else. It wasn't a decision he'd come to very easily, not when he knew it would provide Kersh with more than enough ammunition to bar him from ever returning to the X-Files if not the FBI altogether, but he knew something had to give because he couldn't go on the way he was.

Fortunately Skinner lending him the use of a computer made it much easier and more impersonal to look up the information he needed than being forced to make phone inquiries would have been. With the internet he was able to get costs and even reviews for the places he was interested in, as well as general run downs of the services they offered, their programming, and accommodations.

By early afternoon he'd picked the most likely candidate and needed only to visit his bank to ensure that he could cover the costs before calling to make arrangements.

* * *

Mulder expected more of a hassle when he first tried to take money of his bank account, but the ATM dutifully spit out four fifty dollar bills and a short statement about how much money was in his account.

For a second he felt absurdly disappointed, because he had already anticipated being able to joke with a loan officer about how the reports of his death were greatly exaggerated. Of course, he hadn't been gone for seven years, although three years was quite long enough thank you, so perhaps he hadn't been declared dead. Who would've done that? His parents were gone, and from what Skinner had told him, both he and Scully had hoped that he would return. There really wasn't anyone in his life would benefit from his estate, so maybe even after seven years, maybe after twenty, no one would have gotten around to filing that paperwork. Perhaps there was some benefit to not having enough people in his life to bother with things like that.

Looking down at the paper statement he still held in his hand with the bills, he considered the amount. Apparently his money had continued to earn interest, even while he was off the planet, because the total was a fair bit higher than he anticipated. It would definitely cover the costs associated with what he was planning to do.

The only problem would be convincing Skinner that it was the right move. Although, considering that he was almost positive that Skinner wasn't sleeping through his episodes every night, maybe it wouldn't be as hard a sell as all that anyway.

* * *

A cab in the driveway that night kept Skinner from being able to park. Figuring the guy was lost he waved at the driver, only to have him gesture back. It seemed like he wasn't going to budge, so Skinner gave up and parked on the street figuring he'd save time in the long run if he moved his car after the idiot gave up and left.

Mulder was in the living room, and seemed startled to see him, but he'd been jumpy the whole time so Skinner no longer bothered to apologize. After he put his bag down he commented "Some fool cabdriver is out in my driveway. Not sure how long he'll sit there before he realizes he's got the wrong house."

He was in the middle of picking up the mail off a table by the door when Mulder said, "He's got the right house."

"You called him?" Skinner looked up from the stack of bills and advertisements. "Why? You know if you need a ride I could give you one."

Mulder sighed, and only then did Skinner notice the duffel bag by his feet. "I'm grateful that you took me in, but I think we both know I don't belong here."

Skinner opened his mouth, nearly blurting out what he was thinking, but shut it before he actually came out and said that Mulder was in no condition to look after himself. Thinking of a tactful question took some time, but he finally asked, "Where do you belong, then?" which didn't feel _too_ condescending.

"Do you really have to ask?" The grim he gave him had him worrying about whether he was implying that he was contemplating the same course of action that Jimmy had, but he went on, "I'm not getting better here-"

"It's only been a few days!"

"-and I'm probably not going to without help. I called in a favor with someone I used to work with, before the X-Files, and they got Dolby to agree to admit me."

He nearly asked if he was supposed to know who Dolby was when he realized it was probably a where rather than a who. "That's a... hospital?" he guessed, figuring it was more likely than rehab or a nursing home.

''A psych hospital, yes." Something must have showed on his face, because Mulder gave him a wan smile. "A voluntary commitment this time, to change things up."

He ceased on the word voluntary. "You can sign yourself back out, then?"

"Not the first three days, but after that I could. I'm hoping I won't, though."

Because he didn't expect to stabilize in less than three days, Skinner realized. "How long do you think you'll be there?" he asked abruptly.

Mulder shrugged. "With PTSD? I don't know." He sighed. "But I do know that I need to do this because the path I'm on ends at the end of a rope or mumbling to myself out on the streets."

Unfortunately, Skinner couldn't find it in himself to disagree. So he just nodded.

"I have your blessing, then?"

"You don't need it, but yes."

"Alright, then." Mulder reached for the duffel at his feet, leaving him morbidly wondering how much of its contents would be confiscated as harmful once Mulder checked in.

"Mulder?" He looked up. "Guest room's still yours when you're ready to check out."

"Thanks."

* * *

They didn't take his shoelaces this time, Mulder found himself thinking immediately after he checked in to Dolby. Maybe it was because his stay was going to be voluntary this time. That did make him wonder though, who was more likely to kill themselves: someone who was being held in a hospital against their will who probably didn't think there was anything wrong with themselves, or someone who was so concerned about their own state of mind that they signed up on purpose.

The other thing that was nice about voluntary commitment was that no one was dragging him down the hallway towards his room; instead they let him walk behind like they trusted him to follow. That bode well for his chances of not being held down and drugged too. Or at least he hoped so.

"Here we are," the woman said as they reached a doorway. "It's not the Ritz, but hopefully you'll find it comfortable."

Mulder peered in past her, taking in the standard furniture set up. It was a twin bed, a desk, and a dresser. He'd stayed in worse motel rooms. "It should be fine."

"Well," she said briskly. "I believe that the doctor will speak to you in about a half an hour, so that give you some time to get settled in."

Mulder looked down at the duffel bag he was still holding. Did she honestly think it was going to take him half an hour to unpack? Or maybe she meant mentally. They probably did have a fair number of people who were anxious about transitions. So maybe that made more sense. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," she said, and then left.

Mulder sat at the desk, hoping that he had done the right thing. His main goal was to get better without getting drugged, or at least not with the drugs that might make him speak uncomfortable truths. The sort of truths that would get him locked up for the rest of life, regardless of whether or not he had entered the building on his own accord.

He glanced clock, wondering if the doctor who had been assigned to him would actually help him. Frowning slightly, he turned his gaze towards the windows. It was stormy outside, and the wind was beginning to pick up. If the doctor couldn't help him, at least he could leave.

But he wasn't sure what he would do after that. He wasn't sure at all.

* * *

Skinner had watched the cab back out of the driveway with a heavy heart. If Mulder, who'd gotten a psychology degree from a prestigious university believed that his condition wasn't going to improve without an impatient stay, he was probably right. God knew that he had no idea what to do for him. But even though he doubted any other layperson would, either, he was unable to shake the feeling that he had failed Mulder.

It wasn't until he'd gone into the guest room that night to turn off a lamp that had been left on that he discovered the note.

_Don't blame yourself, Walter. Yesterday I was so sure that they'd come_  
_back for me I pissed myself while hiding in a closet. This is the best thing_  
_for me and everyone else right now._

"Oh, Mulder," he sighed, putting it down.


	7. Beginnings

After an hour or two passed and he'd only been introduced to the doctor who would be treating him and showed around, Mulder came to the conclusion that it was Dolby's policy to ease new patients into the program. In a way that was probably good for a lot of the other people who were sharing the facility with him, but it left him feeling frustrated. The longer it took for him to get started, the longer it was going to be before he got better and got on with his life.

If he even had a life to get back to anymore. This had him sighing, and considering he was sitting on a bed in a mental hospital, it feels like something he was entitled to rather than self-indulgent. What he didn't feel he had the right to was believing that things were ever going to get back to what they'd been like it had been before the beam of cold light had removed him from the world and everything he knew.

Would it be the height of naivety to believe that someday he might eventually be able to return to his job at the FBI? That he might someday be healed enough to be worthy of being part of Scully's new life, which now included children? This sent his thoughts spiraling off into a new direction.

If he had gotten back and learned that Scully was still single, and still childless, he probably would have made sure that she knew he was back, even if he was in as bad a state mentally as he currently was. But there was something about the fact that she was responsible for two young lives that made him terrified of contacting her. He didn't think that most people with posttraumatic stress disorder were dangerous, but what if he proved to be the exception?

He had already been responsible for taking so much from her, the idea of hurting her kids, even by accident, or maybe especially by accident, left him horrified. And maybe that was what motivated him to seek help. He didn't want to be the sort of person who was always worried that just around the corner a mental breakdown would cause them to harm others.

* * *

When Mulder woke that night, the sound of his scream still rang in the air. It shouldn't have surprised him that he was dreaming about being on the ship again, but in a way it did. His waking mind wanted to be through with all of that, but clearly his subconscious was not finished with the ordeal. It struck him as ironic that while he was able to escape the ship, at night his mind to put him right back in there. At least he didn't have a roommate to disturb.

It wasn't particularly cold in his room, but Mulder shivered anyway. This specific dream had been a bad one. In the dream he was not refugee camp thin. Instead his abdomen had swollen to a ridiculous degree, as if he had swallowed a watermelon. In the dream he tried to convince himself that he had no idea what the problem was, but in a way he knew. He could tell by the way it jabbed at him, from within.

And that was not the worst of it. After doing this to him, they had worse in mind. They wanted it. He didn't speak the same language as they did, but he knew just the same that they were claiming it. That it was theirs, at least in their minds. He didn't really want it, but he didn't want them to have it either. It was part of him.

Towards the end of the dream they would drag him down the hallway, and then strap him to a table. And they cut it out. He always woke up before he got to see it. Awake, he couldn't tell if this was a blessing or curse.

The reason he cared was because the scar on his stomach made him think that perhaps it wasn't just a dream as desperately as he wished it to be. He worried that it was a memory. He worried about that a lot.

Any thoughts he had about not bothering anyone considering it was a private room dissipated when there was a firm knock on his door. The knocker didn't wait for him to grant access, and immediately opened the door instead, reminding him that it wasn't a Motel 6 as much as the furnishing might suggest it.

"Everything all right in here, Mr. Mulder?" the nurse asked as soon as he stepped in the room, giving him a concerned look. His gender probably got him hired, Mulder thought, since a big guy like him would have an easier time with people who were potentially out of control like was too likely to happen there.

Mulder summoned up a wan smile for the young man. "Just a nightmare." Just your garden-variety abducted by aliens and then tortured medically dream.

He began to wonder if the nurse had higher aspirations when he asked "anything you want to talk about?" Maybe he thought he would go to med school and become a psychologist himself, Mulder mused. It was as good an aspiration is any, and he did seem to have the bedside manner for it.

Looking at him, Mulder wondered what would happen if he told the man that is nightmare had been about carrying an alien baby, or at least until they cut it out of him. Although, technically, considering it was in his body, it was likely that it was probably really a hybrid baby, with half of it garnering its DNA from him. And then, he wondered how the nurse would react if he said that maybe it wasn't a dream, but a fragmented memory.

The thought of being held down and given a shot of Risperdal didn't bring joy to his heart, so he just shook his head instead. He would save the One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest experience for another night.

After giving him a studying look, the younger man nodded. "Would you like something to help you sleep? I could bring your sleeping pill."

The most common complaint about sleeping pills was that people found that they erased their dreams. "Yes," Mulder said promptly. A dreamless sleep sounded like a gift that point.

"Okay, I'll be right back."

Don't hurry, Mulder thought with a sigh as he watched the nurse walk away. He was grateful for the offer of a sleeping pill, but he dream reminded him exactly how carefully he'd have to tread in order not to make the people treating him understandably believe he was delusional. Because delusions, rather than flashbacks and hallucinations were not his problem. Anti-psychotics would only serve to make him worse.

He was so lost in thought that he didn't even realize that the nurse had returned until a cup and a small capsule were being held out to him. "Maybe you won't even need this," the younger man remarked, making Mulder tempted to snatch the pill from his hand and swallow it before the offer was rescinded. "You look like you're falling asleep already."

To Mulder's relief the drug was handed over to him. "Not quite."

"I guess not then," he answered with a small smile that suggested that the nurse was trying to figure out if Mulder was joking. He still looked unsure when he left.

Mulder shrugged and swallowed the pill, hoping hard for the remainder of the night to come without any dreams.

* * *

The next morning Mulder woke up and steeled himself for the fact that he was going to be expected to eat with everyone else; the night before he'd arrived late enough to avoid a group meal. Sighing, he told himself that he couldn't avoid it because it wouldn't help him get better. Not to mention getting a reputation as antisocial wouldn't be a good thing, either.

So he got dressed like a good boy and wandered down to the dining room. It wasn't an overly large room because the facility didn't serve that many people, but the designer still managed to make the setting feel institutional rather than homey. He guessed that they didn't want to encourage anyone to get too comfortable. A handful of people were seated at the long rectangular tables, but most were in line with their trays, so he picked one up too.

No one in line said anything much, and he was afraid to wonder if this was because they weren't morning people... or because they were drugged. Scully had given him a lot of practice dealing with people who woke up bearish, but if they were medicated...

A woman who reminded him of the lunch ladies at his middle school, right down to the health department mandated hairnet, put a stack of pancakes on the plate he acquired as the line shuffled past a station and gave him a brittle smile he wondered if was also mandated.

Since he wasn't feeling social, yet didn't want to look like a loner, he brought his tray over to a table where a young man sat flicking his fingers in front of his own eyes. "mind if I sit?" he asked quietly. The man continued to ignore both him and the tray sitting on the table in front of him. Mulder shrugged and slowly set his own tray down, braced for a loud outburst. Fortunately he didn't get one. Relaxing a little, he picked up his silverware. But then a voice behind him said, "Tim's autistic. He barely knows you're there."

Turning slightly, he saw a thirty-something man giving him an amused look. He was the only one in the dining room who was anywhere near as thin as Mulder. Long, dirty dark hair hung in his dark eyes. Eventually he realized that the guy was waiting for a response, so he said, "I know."

''Ah, you wanted to sit with someone who won't talk you ears off, I get you," he said, getting ready to walk away.

"Wait," he said impulsively. When he did, Mulder wasn't sure why he stopped him but he felt obliged to wave towards one of the empty seats.

Smirking, the man sat down. "Mark."

Mulder hesitated. "Fox," he said eventually. He was supposed to be a political prisoner, not an FBI agent, so he probably shouldn't insist everyone call him Mulder. This had him unexpectedly thinking of a conversation early in his partnership with Scully, which left him feeling melancholy.

"What? Your parents not like you or something?" Mark asked.

"Something like that."

Mark nodded thoughtfully. "Food's not too bad, here. Kind of boring, but that doesn't bother some people, does it, Tim?" Predictably, Tim didn't pay any more attention to Mark's comments than he had Mulder's question. Turning back to Mulder, Mark said, "Until I got here it never occurred to me that someone like our buddy Tim here was even capable of getting a mental illness. Life sticks it so hard to some people."

"Yeah," Mulder agreed. His schooling taught him that mental illness often struck those who had already had the deck stacked against him, but it was hard to disagree that it felt extra unfair.

"You just got here last night, right?" Mark asked then, looking down to saw at his pancakes.

"Uh huh." He began to feel wary, worried that Mark's next question was going to be a demand to know why he was there. There hadn't been time yet to polish a good cover story, so he felt unprepared, exposed.

"I've been here a month," Mark confided. "I mean, voluntarily. This time."

For a moment Mulder almost blurted out that it was the same for him too, this time, but he just nodded. He really wasn't up for swapping stories about involuntary commitments of the past.

This seemed to satisfy his tablemate because the other man began to eat his breakfast, leaving him free to eat as well. Tim flicked his fingers a few more times then finally gave his own tray some attention too. As the three of them ate, lost in their own thoughts, Mulder finally began to relax a little. He'd more than half expected the meal to be an ordeal, but it wasn't. That wasn't to say that it couldn't happen later, but at the moment it was okay.

Still, he sensed that he ought to savor the okay times because there was surely worse to come ahead. It wasn't summer camp; you weren't ready to leave without doing some damn hard work first.


	8. Group

The first of this hard work came at mid-morning, in the form of a group therapy session. Although he figured it was naïve, he had some hope that he'd be allowed to fade into the background and quietly listen the first time. Unfortunately this was not to be.

Most of the other people in the PTSD group were former members of the military, pushed to their breaking points by their experiences on sand dunes half a world away, but a few were women who had suffered unfortunate indignities much closer to home. It was hard for him to decide who he felt closer to, on a comparable tragedy scale, at first but in the end the women who spoke haltingly of rape and other abuse seemed to be more of a kindred spirit to him than men who felt guilt over what their service had asked of them. He didn't feel any guilt; he hadn't even been able to fight back enough to even mildly disturb his captors. If anything, he felt ashamed of his helplessness, which was something he could see mirrored in the eyes of all three women there.

The person leading the group was an earnest young woman, fresh out of med school, he thought. He tried not to allow himself to remember Scully when she'd been that age and secretly thrilled to be defying parental expectations by getting no closer to practicing medicine than wielding a scalpel for an autopsy. Nevertheless he got so lost in this thought that he was taken by surprise to hear her ask, "And what about your experiences, Fox?"

Casting her a startled look, he stammered, "I'm not sure what to say." Which was the god's honest truth. It wasn't as though anything good could come of being truthful, yet lying wasn't going to help him sleep at night or avoid flashbacks and hallucinations.

The woman, Sarah, nodded thoughtfully before saying, "That's okay. A lot of new comers don't know where to start." For half a second he hoped that this would mean that he was off the hook for the day but she dashed that by asking, "Do you mind if I give the group your background?"

It felt like a test, and he didn't want to fail it, so he found himself reluctantly saying, "Okay" even though his instincts were telling him to scream no as he ran out of the room.

Sarah offered him a brief, encouraging smile that said 'don't worry we're all friends here' which he didn't yet believe before looking at the other men and women who sat in the circle. "Fox was a political prisoner for three years. Isn't that right?" He nodded, but when he looked up he was a bit surprised to see how many sympatric faces were looking back at him. It gave him a little hope that Sarah wasn't wrong about them all being friends of a sort. If Sarah noticed his reaction, she didn't let on. "I'm sure you've all noticed how thin he is-" This made him turn red, feeling absurdly adolescent when it bothered him to have this pointed out. "His captors withheld food towards the end of his ordeal."

This predictably elicited a couple of gasps and a few more tisks, and one large dark-skinned man who had been a marine in Iraq grinned at him and said, "I feel like I should send you to my momma. She'd get the weight back on you quick."

There were a few soft chuckles, which he took as agreement that the marine was making a good natured joke rather than trying to slight him, so he smiled back. "I could probably use that," he agreed and the laugher got louder.

Sarah let it go on a minute before refocusing them. "Fox, would you agree that you felt helpless in that situation?"

Mulder nodded slowly. "Yes." It frustrated him that he still felt helpless in many ways. His captors were literally light years away (or so he hoped with every fiber of his being) but they still seemed to hold tremendous power over him... "Still do," he blurted out without intending to.

The people in the group reacted, although he didn't catch most of what was said. Sarah looked at him and remarked, "I think you'll find that everyone else feels that way too. And people who haven't been through the sorts of experiences you all have can unwittingly make you feel worse." Glancing at the rest of group, Sarah said, "Please raise your hand if you agree: at first people are sympathetic to what you've been through, but before very long you get the sense that even people who care about you feel like now that you're not being actively harmed you should be able to just get over it, like being a victim is something that stops the moment you escape the traumatizing situation."

It took a few seconds, but in the end everyone but him raised their hand, including Sarah. It made him wonder if the popular idea that most people became therapists because they were looking to heal themselves might hold a grain of truth.

"What about you, Fox?" one of the women asked. He figured her to be in her 59, judging by her short steel-hued hair.

He sighed and decided to tell the truth. "My friend Walter is the only one who knows I'm back yet. And he feels enough guilt about not being able to keep me from being taken that it probably hasn't occurred to him that he can be annoyed with me."

"You want to get better before you connect with people again?" the same woman asked. It turned out that she didn't expect him to answer. ''I can't say that it's wrong to do that. Lord knows I wish I'd been less of a mess after my divorce. You'll have fewer people to apologize than I did."

Mulder looked at his hands, unable to bring himself to admit how few people there were in his life that cared enough for him and vice versa that he was concerned about how his erratic behavior might affect them. He'd shared enough for one day already.

"I don't think there's any one right way of picking up the pieces," the solider whose mother was a good cook announced. "But I know that no matter how we do it, we still end up feeling like maybe we should've done something else."

No one in the group disagreed with him.

"Jake, Ruthe, thank you for giving us something to think about," Sarah said. "We'll pick this up next time."

"Hopefully one of us will be in the hot seat instead of you, then," Jake said to him as they stood to leave.

Mulder looked at his welcoming grin and agreed. "Yeah, that'd be nice."

''I thought I saw you eating with Mark and Tim this morning."

"Yup," he said cautiously, bracing himself for being told why he shouldn't have.

Jake nodded thoughtfully. "Mark's a good guy. I mean, he's got his problems, or he wouldn't be here with the rest of us. And Tim, well, at least he won't talk your ear off."

Mulder wondered where he was going with this, at least until Jake said, "Maybe the four of us could have dinner some time."

"Oh, sure." He hadn't really given any thought to whether or not he'd eat with Mark again, and now he was wondering if Mark shared Jake's expectation that he would. Probably.

"Good." Jake looked relieved. "My buddy Pete was here too, but he got discharged. That's a problem with a place like this: as happy as you are for people who get better and go home, it still is hard to be left behind."

"Uh huh." He turned his face, not wanting his surprise to show. The thought that he might grow attached enough to his fellow patients to care when they left hadn't occurred to him. Maybe Jake was more of a people person than he was. Or maybe he was in for a different experience than he'd planned on.

But would the latter really be so bad? During group he'd been upset to think of how few links he'd forged in his adult life, but it didn't have to stay that way forever.

Maybe he should put forming meaningful relationships on his list of goals for the time he was in-patient.

It sure would make for awkward "I've known my friend X since we met in…" stories, though.

* * *

Mulder ended up eating lunch alone except for Tim that afternoon. Jake had a solo therapy session, and he didn't end up seeing Mark again for several more hours. He spotted Tim just after he'd gotten his food, but he didn't expect the young man to pay him any attention; once Tim gave him a sidelong look before joining him at the table, he realized he'd been wrong to think Tim hadn't been aware of him at breakfast. He made a mental note to be aware that Tim probably could understand him, and decided to ear on the side of caution. ''Afternoon, Tim."

Tim looked up briefly, but said nothing.

_I definitely shouldn't talk about him like he's not here, not like Mark does_, he thought. _Makes me wonder what he thinks of Mark_. Unless, of course, Tim didn't mind the things Mark said about him; Mark had been blunt but not mean, so maybe he didn't have a problem with it.

"So, groups, huh?" Mulder asked, not expecting or getting a response. "Wonder if I'll like those better or worse than one-on-one."

Neither he nor Tim spoke further, and Mulder found it peaceful to spend time with someone who wasn't asking anything of him. Even Skinner had seemed too demanding of him, and all he wanted was a houseguest who didn't hide in closets.

"Tim likes group."

By the time Mulder looked up, startled, the gravelly voice disappeared. Tim wasn't looking at him either, and if there had been anyone within conversational distance he would have assumed someone else had spoken.

"The people in my group are nice," Mulder offered.

There was a long pause. Then "Tim likes Doctor Wendel. He's nice."

"In group?"

"Yeah."

"Sarah's okay too. A little pushy may be, but okay," he said, wondering if he ought to be calling her doctor too, given she probably was despite her youth.

There wasn't much more conversation then, but it was pleasant in an odd sort of way.

* * *

Group therapy continued to be both somewhat challenging yet okay for Mulder over the next couple of weeks. Somehow, he was able to say things that were meaningful enough to make him feel a little better, but mostly lies. Or maybe not so much lies, he decided when thinking about it once, but distortions. He didn't make up completely fabricated places and players when talking about what had happened to him, but white washed them with a thin veneer of humanity. Earthliness.

Thus, when he talked about his abuse, the other members of the group likely imagined him being screamed at and abused beaten by swarthy members of a South American military group in a jungle, rather than by gray-skinned aliens on a ship. Most of his trials were easy enough to translate into terms that people could understand and accept.

It was solo sessions that he had more issues with. At first he and Doctor Hull spent a lot of time discussing relaxation techniques, which he found frustrating. Eventually he snapped at Hull, telling him that he could have done a yahoo search and gotten identical advice for free.

Fortunately, Hull wasn't easily flustered, and didn't get upset when Mulder lashed out like that. Upon reflection Mulder decided that this made sense because the type of person who was easily hurt probably wouldn't last long treating in-patient.

Instead, Hull listened to his concerns before asking if Mulder was willing to consider medication.

"It depends on what you have in mind." He'd looked up PTSD medications while exploring treatment options, mostly to see if the drugs had changed since he had studied the disorder at Oxford. "I'm not willing to take any benzos. I understand why they might be a good option for some people, but I don't like what I've read about the risk of addiction," he said, nearly having to bite his tongue to keep himself from making a more sophisticated argument against using a drug that carried that high a risk of dependency. He felt fairly strongly that outing himself as trained psychologist himself would be a massive misstep. "And I don't want any of those zombie drugs, either."

Hull looked mildly amused. "You mean antipsychotics?"

"I don't know, I mean drugs that leave you completely out of it, drooling on yourself. The nightmares and hallucinations are bad, but those drugs sound like hell." He carefully avoided saying that they seemed like a fate worse than death, least Hull begin to think about suicidal ideations, which would be rather unfortunate considering he wasn't so devoid of hope that he found the idea of ending it all appealing.

Hull nodded. "I appreciate your concerns, but I had an SSRI in mind instead." Mulder gave him his best blank look in case the off-hand use of the shorthand was a test, and Hull clarified, "An anti-depressant, I mean."

"Oh. I guess that would be okay." Giving Hull a suspicious look, he asked, "What kind of side effects do they have, though? I know all these drugs have them."

"I was thinking of Paxil. Common side effects include dry mouth, trouble sleeping, upset stomach, and dizziness, but not everyone gets them. Some people don't get any."

''And less common ones?"

"Weight gain-"

"Sign me up," Mulder said with a smirk.

"And some men experience sexual side effects," Hull said, obviously trying to mask his discomfort.

"You mean...?" Mulder made an unmistakable gesture.

To his credit, Hull didn't blush. "Sometimes. Other men have lower levels of arousal or difficulty reaching orgasm."

"Yeah, well. I'm going to have difficulty with that anyway unless I meet a woman with a concentration camp fetish."

"Ah. So you didn't leave behind a spouse, I take it," Hull said, then looked horrified at himself. At first Mulder couldn't figure out why, but then he realized that the doctor was worried that he had and that she had left him.

"Nope," Mulder agreed, wondering why he was concerned about Hull's feelings. "Not even close." But was that really true, he wondered silently.

"Well, hopefully that won't even be an issue anyway," Hull said heartily. "So, what do you say, should we give it a try?"

If it brought him one step closer to being whole again, it'd be worth it if he got all the side effects. "Definitely."

"Okay, then." Hull looked pleased.

Mulder left the session feeling cautiously pleased too.


End file.
